How would you grade the Falcons draft this year?
In case you missed it, the 2025 NFL Draft occurred this past weekend. The Atlanta Falcons had a very interesting draft as they took edge Jalon Walker with their pick at 15 and then turned around and made a trade with the Los Angeles Rams and moved back into Round 1 where they selected edge James Pearce Jr. at pick 26.
I shared the grades that draft “experts” gave the Falcons in a previous article, where they seemed mostly in the B-C grades range. Fans of the team have been more optimistic, which is a rare thing in Atlanta.
Let’s take a look.
As you can see above, an incredible 0% of fans surveyed gave the team an ‘F’ grade for their selection of Walker. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a Georgia Bulldog… maybe it’s because he’s extremely talented. Either way, seeing 0% warms my heart.
On the flip side, they loved the pick. Surveyed fans overwhelmingly gave the selection an A with 85%, but even then 97% saw it as a B or higher — and I’ll take that.
Now let’s take a look at the more debated selection of Pearce Jr.
As you can see, some folks didn’t like the move. And my guess is that those 15% who graded the selection as a ‘D’ or ‘F’ weren’t so much grading the player, but the move to trade back in and swap their 2026 first-round pick and their second-round pick in the 2025 draft.
With that being said, 69% saw it as a good move, grading between a ‘B’ and ‘A’ while 16% seems like they weren’t really for or against it.
Either way, no matter how you grade these moves, we won’t fairly know for about 3-4 years on how this draft shapes out. I’ll say the current regime is making a bold statement in these moves and is making a serious effort to address the pass rush which has been non-existent for as long as I can remember.
Do you agree with these grades? Disagree? Talk it out in the comments!